They say this one is normal difficulty - but it is a LONG long time to play it because you have to build up every single biome in the list - alpine, boreal forest, desert, savannah, scrub, temperate forest, tropical rainforest, tundra, and wetlands. You start out with a reasonably sized map with a face of water :)

OK< you begin with a gazelle, peacock and moose. Note that you *always* want to put down 2 of each, so that if you take too long, the animals are having babies at least.

Start out by hitting PAUSE. Put a low fence for a pair of peacocks to the left of the "top of the path". Give it the right biome and 1 tree. Now to the right of the path make a big tall cage reaching all the way to the bottom solid fence. Put a pair of moose in there. For the Gazelle, make a cage to the left along the bottom wall. Make paths to these 3 cages, give each cage a gate, food and water dishes. Make 1 of each type of employee. For your visitors, make a food, drink, bath at the top end-of-path. Add an ATM by the entrance and a donation box by each cage. This takes care of boreal, savannah and temperate. I still had money to make a sundial at the top area, people REALLY like beauty.

So every cage should have a male and female animal, plus a food and water dish, appropriate biome and 1 tree.

OK, now START. While the people start coming in, go around and recycle EVERY single extra tree, rock, etc. anywhere in your map area. The income and camels start to come in. Add the camels into a cage immediately to the left of the gazelles, along that lower wall.

It's still January, you should have 1 star. Research a fountain and a popcorn cart. Add in a gift cart.

February brings a few pregnancies - build in a fountain and gift shop. You should get penguins - add a low fence right above the peacocks. They are $2,000 so wait for the cash to come in. By March you have 1 1/2 stars. Mid-March should bring you 2 stars. Add in the 2nd penguin by now. You get in Gemsbok - add those along the lower wall, to the left of the camels. Add in another zookeeper and assign each one to half of the cages. Always remember to put the gates near each other and the food dishes by the gates to make their jobs easier.

Add in an insect house and photo booth. You should have 2.5 stars by April. By May you can add in sub food and a composter (far away from the people!) to draw in extra money. Decline any animals you already have, so you get new ones. Ibex come in next - put in a pair by the Gemsbok. Build ice cream stands. By June you get flamingo - put a pair of them in by the lakes, northeast of the penguins. You should be up to a family restaurant and big gift shop by now, I put mine over on the far left by the Ibex.

July comes along. Jaguars appear, so I put them by the Ibex. That's it!